Expedia and Hotels.com currency issues

Nebulous2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82128360#Comment_82128360

It has depended for me when I pay. Booking well ahead, one of the advantages of Booking.com is that you don't have to pay the full amount, as you do direct to the hotel.

I've had the deposit taken in pounds and then the balance - sometimes a short time before the visit - taken in the local currency.

I was expecting it though, it certainly wasn't hidden, and had paid with a travel card.

Like any currency movement it can work both ways. I've paid more than first quoted, but also paid less.

lon_don

It has depended for me when I pay. Booking well ahead, one of the advantages of Booking.com is that you don't have to pay the full amount, as you do direct to the hotel.

In my case the better Expedia price (vs booking on the US site in USD and converting at the prevailing fx rate) was conditional on paying up front and being non refundable. It was also less than 1 month before travel.

redux

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82128416#Comment_82128416

That chargeback might be for some different circumstances, such as at a Polish motorway fuel forecourt, near the German border, where I looked on the receipt on the way out and saw a charge in pounds, which had not appeared on the terminal screen

I went back and asked it to be cancelled and charged instead in złoty, in a slightly raised voice so the people in two queues might hear me. The manager came out and did it on a third till

When I got home I calculated that this supposedly helpful measure had as I suspected a high currency margin built in, 8%, while my card had none.